The Rock

Devotion for the week...

Newfoundland’s nickname is The Rock and it is well deserved. There is so much coastline around this island, but it is all almost rock. Rock feels enduring, permanent, and never changing. A couple of years ago, though, Paul and I visited a site that reminded us how impermanent rock can be.

The site is called Mistaken Point. It’s a Unesco World Heritage Site for the abundance of fossils to be found in its rocks. If you think rocks are fascinating, like I do, it’s a great place to visit! The site is carefully protected, both to prevent theft of the fossils (it happened in the past and you can see the holes where the fossils used to be), and to protect them. When you arrive at the site with your tour group, you must remove your shoes before stepping out onto the flat rocks to view the fossils, because the constant scuffing of shoes would damage the rock over time. 

We chatted with our tour guide about erosion, and the changing face of the rocks. He said there are always bits of rock breaking off from the natural processes of waves, rain, storms, freezing, etc. and part of the study done at the site includes looking at newly exposed surfaces to see if there are new fossils visible. That surprised me, because I looked at the huge rocks and thought they were permanent, but they’re not. Though the changes are slow, they do happen.

I remembered that conversation when I read Isaiah 26:4, which says, “Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.” I think it was the capitalization of Rock that made me make the connection to the rocks of Newfoundland, because The Rock is always capitalized, too. But unlike God, the rocks of this province are not eternal. When we walk on our rocky beaches, we often find small rocks that have recently split apart. Because the split is recent, their flat edges stand out amid all the other rounded edges of the rocks around them. Over time, though, those stark edges will change, becoming round and smooth as erosion does its work.

God doesn’t change, though. His power and authority are the same today as they were when He raised Jesus. His love and compassion are still the same today as when Jesus went to the cross for us. God is still our refuge in times of trouble. He is still good, and His love still endures forever. Time and circumstances have not eroded anything about our God, so we can trust absolutely in His love, His power, His authority, His compassion, and His provision for us. 

As Isaiah wrote, we can trust in Him always because He is our Rock and He is eternal.